


if i were cheddar cheese

by honey_wheeler



Category: Station Agent (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 16:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler





	1. if i were cheddar cheese

He isn’t anything like Finn. They make an odd pair, the two of them. Joe couldn’t be quiet to save his life and if you asked him to be introspective, he’d have to look it up first. He’s like a giant puppy, a golden retriever or a Labrador, all big paws and eagerness, no finesse or restraint.

That should put Olivia off sleeping with him, but somehow it doesn’t. Maybe she lets her need for eagerness override her need for finesse. Maybe it's the wine and the pot that first time. Maybe she's just too lonely for too long.

He doesn’t talk _during_ sex, but it’s close. As she strips off his shirt and unfastens his pants, he’ll chatter on about his family or this movie he saw once with a guy and a monkey, until she shuts him up with her mouth. And when they’re lying in bed after, when the only sound should be their mingled breathing and the creek and the crickets outside, he’ll suddenly wonder what it is Finn likes about trains so much and whether any of those other train club friends of his have girlfriends or if they’re like those sad _Star Wars_ people who’ve never even kissed anyone and how can you be a middle-aged man who’s never kissed anyone? She’ll fall asleep to his voice and wake up to him clinking and puttering in the kitchen, humming snatches of almost-familiar songs and talking to himself. _If I were cheddar cheese,_ he’ll say, _where would I be?_

She complains about it, to herself mostly but sometimes to her sister when she calls. She jokes about the lengths she’s willing to go just to get some sex. If she admits it’s more than that, it’ll make it too real, so she lets herself pretend it’s not. At least for now.


	2. the prime minister of pakistan

It’s Olivia’s chin that makes Joe fall kind of in love with her a little. He can almost tell what she’s thinking or how she’s feeling just by looking at her chin, whether it’s set or loose or moving on its own like no chin should be able to do. She’s self-conscious about it; she squirms away when he touches his thumb to the groove just beneath her lower lip. 

He likes other stuff about her, too; the way she remembers the weirdest things, like why the sky is blue or who the Prime Minister of Pakistan is, and how she rubs her hands when she’s thinking – absently, like they’re a kitten or something else that’s soft. But it’s the chin that really gets him, that makes him lean forward and kiss her after they’ve dried all the dinner dishes and Finn’s lying asleep on her couch. That makes him watch her for half an hour in the morning while she sleeps before he gets up to make her pancakes for breakfast.


End file.
